[liberationtech] WSJ Op-Ed: No Quick Fixes for Internet Freedom

[Mehdi Yahyanejad]

>
>  China at least seems to block each tool in proportion to the degree to
> which the tool embarrasses the regime (*not* in proportion to the technical
> efficiency of the tool).  The gifc tools hugely embarrass the Chinese
> government because they are both falun gong run and explicitly political.


This is not a proven fact. More likely, Chinese government will put
resources in blocking any successful tool regardless of the embarrassment
factor. Also so far, GIFC has been successful in defeating the Chinese
government's censorship and there is no reason to believe that they won't be
able to do so in future.

I am not in favor of bringing such political considerations into the funding
process for two reasons:

1) It is hard to agree on political considerations. For example, some people
see the political background of GIFC as a negative factor, I don't. The
success of GIFC's products is partly due to their understanding of the
context which must have come from their political background. Considering
that they have created the tools for a political goal, they are not getting
distracted by having a design which would be admired in academic
circles*. *They
know that their primary job is getting as many people as possible to the
blocked content.

2) Such political considerations brings in lobbyists to the funding process.
Groups that have not received funding due to such political considerations
will use outside pressure to defeat the political considerations used
against them. If it is true that gifc has used lobbyists, it is the direct
result of such political considerations that prevented them from getting
funding before.


-mehdi


On Fri, Nov 19, 2010 at 7:13 PM, Hal Roberts <hroberts at cyber.law.harvard.edu
> wrote:

> I wrote a similar (though vastly less well written!) oped to Rebecca's this
> week for Radio Free Europe:
>
>
> http://www.rferl.org/content/Breaking_Internet_Censorship_Will_Take_More_Than_Circumvention_Tools/2222401.html
>
> The careful argument I've been trying to make about circumvention funding
> is that there's plenty of reason to fund these tools for the absolute amount
> of good they do -- allowing hundreds of thousands or millions more people
> more freedom of expression on the Internet. There's real good in giving
> ultrasurf / tor / ultrasurf / psiphon / hotspotshield enough money to be
> able to provide more freedom of expression to a million more people.
>
> But the gifc tools at least are not being sold that way -- they are being
> sold as the way to make the internet (and even authoritarian societies!)
> free, which they clearly will not do by themselves.  It's fine to spend
> money battling the low hanging fruit of network filtering simply because
> that's where the easy (if slight) leverage is, but we need to be clear that
> that's what we're doing.
>
> The other issue that I don't discuss in my oped (for space reasons) is that
> the gifc tools are easily the best in the world at evading blocking because
> they are easily the most aggressively blocked tool in the world.  China at
> least seems to block each tool in proportion to the degree to which the tool
> embarrasses the regime (*not* in proportion to the technical efficiency of
> the tool).  The gifc tools hugely embarrass the Chinese government because
> they are both falun gong run and explicitly political.  One likely effect of
> the USG publicly granting a much bigger chunk of money to gifc will be to
> embarrass the Chinese government even more and encourage them to ramp up
> their blocking efforts.  Again, this is not sufficient reason to not to fund
> these tools, but it is reason to carefully consider whether it's the best
> idea to publicly give them a much bigger chunk of money.
>
> -hal
>
>
> On 11/19/10 6:44 PM, Mehdi Yahyanejad wrote:
>
>> Most of the public justification for the Internet Freedom funding has
>> been the specific cases of Iran and China (read congressional hearings
>> on these issues). It makes sense to ask about the effectiveness of the
>> funding in Iran and China. GIFC tools have been pretty successful in
>> Iran so far. Since they were made for China, they must be doing better
>> there. There has been much more funding for other projects with less
>> impressive result. Why don't we hear about the funding spent on other
>> projects? Criticizing the funding for one of the most successful
>> circumvention tools to make an argument on why there should be different
>> priorities for Internet Freedom is not helping the argument.
>>
>> Having a broader strategy for "Internet freedom" and listing priorities
>> is needed but those other priorities are not as well-defined as the
>> technical problems. A good thing about technical problems is that with a
>> good mix of money and engineers, you can generate some results. That is
>> not the case with the legal and regulatory issues. Until we do have that
>> list of priorities, we better keep our eyes on the technical challenges
>> and not get distracted.
>>
>> -mehdi
>>
>> On Nov 19, 2010, at 7:57 AM, Evgeny Morozov wrote:
>>
>>  I'd like to chime in here and defend Rebecca's conclusions, which are
>>> very similar to my own. My impression is that none of this money is
>>> meant specifically for either a) circumvention or b) Iran. As such, I
>>> don't see how the facts that Mehdi cites - i.e. that GIFC tools are
>>> actively used in Iran or that other projects got more money - is
>>> relevant for our discussion here. That the US government may have
>>> overspent on other tools is no good reason to continue doing so in the
>>> future, even if the portfolio is diversified with GIFC.
>>>
>>> The government may not have a real strategy on how to address some of
>>> the other challenges/threats to "Internet freedom" highlighted in
>>> Rebecca's piece (and for the record, I don't think that "Internet
>>> freedom" is a useful way to describe the problems facing them), but
>>> this is certainly NOT a good excuse to continue funding projects
>>> without drawing up a list of both regional and topical priorities
>>> first. As I once already said on this list, while I appreciate Mehdi's
>>> concern about the accessibility of his web-site to users in Iran, this
>>> surely can't be the guiding principle of US foreign policy on
>>> "Internet freedom".
>>>
>>> Evgeny
>>>
>>> On Fri, Nov 19, 2010 at 3:50 AM, Mehdi Yahyanejad
>>> <yahyanejad at gmail.com <mailto:yahyanejad at gmail.com>> wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>>    Since 2007, Congress has inserted a total of $50 million of
>>>>    earmarks into the State Department's budget to fund organizations
>>>>    dedicated to fighting Internet censorship. One group that has
>>>>    been lobbying hard for the money is the Global Internet Freedom
>>>>    Consortium, run mainly by practitioners of the Falun Gong, a
>>>>    religious sect banned in China. The GIFC has produced a suite of
>>>>    circumvention tools that work well, as long as the user doesn't
>>>>    mind that GIFC engineers can see their unencrypted
>>>>    communications, or that the security of the tool has not been
>>>>    vetted by independent experts.
>>>>
>>>>    The GIFC has found powerful allies in Mark Palmer, who was U.S.
>>>>    ambassador to Hungary when the Iron Curtain fell, and Michael
>>>>    Horowitz, a former Reagan administration official and longtime
>>>>    advocate for human rights and religious freedom. They argue that
>>>>    if the GIFC can get sufficient funding to scale up their tools,
>>>>    authoritarian regimes will be brought to their knees.
>>>>
>>>>    The State Department has come under fire in the Journal, the
>>>>    Washington Post and the New York Times for failing to support
>>>>    GIFC. And it's true that of the $20 million already allocated,
>>>>    most went to other groups that are less radioactive as far as
>>>>    U.S.-China relations are concerned. Some of these groups work to
>>>>    help activists with training and security against surveillance,
>>>>    cyber-attacks and other threats, in addition to circumventing
>>>>    censorship.
>>>>
>>>>    In August, $1.5 million out of $5 million available for 2009 was
>>>>    finally awarded by the State Department to the GIFC via the
>>>>    Broadcasting Board of Governors. The bidding process for a
>>>>    remaining $30 million is expected to start soon. With the
>>>>    mid-term elections now finished, we can look forward to a new
>>>>    surge in the war over who gets to be hero of the fairy tale
>>>>    "Toppling the Iron Curtain 2.0"
>>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>    The GIFC tools are the most adopted circumvention tools among the
>>>    users in Iran. I am stating this fact based on what I see in the
>>>    log files of Balatarin and what I was told by other people who run
>>>    major Iranian websites. Also, I know that other circumvention tool
>>>    projects have received much more funding than the $1.5 million
>>>    which GIFC is going to get. For that matter, it completely makes
>>>    sense for the GIFC to ask for political support in the congress to
>>>    pressure the State Department in spending the money on the project
>>>    which has been delivering the numbers.
>>>
>>>    -mehdi
>>>
>>>
>>>    On Nov 18, 2010, at 8:14 PM, Rebecca MacKinnon wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>> http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704104104575622080860055498.html
>>>>
>>>>    NOVEMBER 18, 2010, 10:21 A.M. ET
>>>>
>>>>    No Quick Fixes for Internet Freedom
>>>>    The hard work to promote free speech online has barely begun.
>>>>
>>>>    By REBECCA MACKINNON
>>>>
>>>>    Just before U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton arrived in
>>>>    Hanoi late last month, Vietnamese authorities redoubled their
>>>>    assault on Internet dissent. Two more bloggers were arrested and
>>>>    another due to be released had his sentence extended. Dissident
>>>>    websites came under cyber attack, taking them offline at a time
>>>>    when they most needed to be visible.
>>>>
>>>>    Meanwhile in Washington, a battle is raging over funding for
>>>>    organizations and projects supporting "Internet freedom." Like
>>>>    many Washington fights, this one makes it harder for the U.S.
>>>>    government to help real people with real problems.
>>>>
>>>>    I study how governments seek to stifle and control online
>>>>    dissent. Activists from the Middle East to Asia to the former
>>>>    Soviet states have all been telling me that they suffer from
>>>>    increasingly sophisticated cyber-attacks. Such attacks disable
>>>>    activists' websites at politically crucial times. Email accounts
>>>>    are hacked and computer systems are breached, enabling intruders
>>>>    to install spyware and monitor every electronic move. They are
>>>>    desperate for training and technical help to fight increasingly
>>>>    sophisticated, well-funded adversaries.
>>>>
>>>>    The cyber-attacks are one of several new and intractable problems
>>>>    faced by online activists, alongside the older and more clear-cut
>>>>    problem of Internet censorship. A number of repressive
>>>>    governments, including Vietnam, Iran and China, block local
>>>>    Internet users from accessing politically sensitive overseas
>>>>    websites, as well as commercial social networking services like
>>>>    Facebook and Twitter. Anybody can get around this blockage if
>>>>    they know how to use what is called "circumvention technology."
>>>>    Several U.S-based organizations have developed a range of
>>>>    circumvention tools.
>>>>
>>>>    Tools for circumventing censorship are indeed important for
>>>>    activists. But they do nothing to protect against cyber-attacks,
>>>>    or to address a growing number of other ways that governments
>>>>    work to prevent activists from using the Internet to access
>>>>    information, get their message out, and organize. Still, many in
>>>>    Congress and the media have bought into the fantasy that all the
>>>>    U.S. needs to do is put enough money into these circumvention
>>>>    tools, and one in particular—and freedom will flood through the
>>>>    crumbling firewalls.
>>>>
>>>>    Since 2007, Congress has inserted a total of $50 million of
>>>>    earmarks into the State Department's budget to fund organizations
>>>>    dedicated to fighting Internet censorship. One group that has
>>>>    been lobbying hard for the money is the Global Internet Freedom
>>>>    Consortium, run mainly by practitioners of the Falun Gong, a
>>>>    religious sect banned in China. The GIFC has produced a suite of
>>>>    circumvention tools that work well, as long as the user doesn't
>>>>    mind that GIFC engineers can see their unencrypted
>>>>    communications, or that the security of the tool has not been
>>>>    vetted by independent experts.
>>>>
>>>>    The GIFC has found powerful allies in Mark Palmer, who was U.S.
>>>>    ambassador to Hungary when the Iron Curtain fell, and Michael
>>>>    Horowitz, a former Reagan administration official and longtime
>>>>    advocate for human rights and religious freedom. They argue that
>>>>    if the GIFC can get sufficient funding to scale up their tools,
>>>>    authoritarian regimes will be brought to their knees.
>>>>
>>>>    The State Department has come under fire in the Journal, the
>>>>    Washington Post and the New York Times for failing to support
>>>>    GIFC. And it's true that of the $20 million already allocated,
>>>>    most went to other groups that are less radioactive as far as
>>>>    U.S.-China relations are concerned. Some of these groups work to
>>>>    help activists with training and security against surveillance,
>>>>    cyber-attacks and other threats, in addition to circumventing
>>>>    censorship.
>>>>
>>>>    In August, $1.5 million out of $5 million available for 2009 was
>>>>    finally awarded by the State Department to the GIFC via the
>>>>    Broadcasting Board of Governors. The bidding process for a
>>>>    remaining $30 million is expected to start soon. With the
>>>>    mid-term elections now finished, we can look forward to a new
>>>>    surge in the war over who gets to be hero of the fairy tale
>>>>    "Toppling the Iron Curtain 2.0"
>>>>
>>>>    Meanwhile in real life, the human rights watchdog organization
>>>>    Freedom House warns of a "global freedom recession." They point
>>>>    to a decrease in online freedom even in many countries that
>>>>    engage in little or no website blocking.
>>>>
>>>>    Take Russia, for example. In a new book published by the Open Net
>>>>    Initiative, "Access Controlled," University of Toronto scholars
>>>>    Rafal Rohozinski and Ronald Deibert point out that while the
>>>>    Russian government doesn't block many websites, it stifles online
>>>>    dissent in a range of other ways. Government critics in Russia
>>>>    face cyber-attacks, surveillance, and good old-fashioned
>>>>    intimidation.
>>>>
>>>>    In a growing number of countries including China, domestic
>>>>    Internet companies are enlisted in this effort through regulatory
>>>>    pressures. Laws and mechanisms originally meant to enforce
>>>>    copyright, protect children and fight online crime are abused to
>>>>    silence or intimidate political critics.
>>>>
>>>>    In real life, conceiving and implementing an effective set of
>>>>    policies, programs, and tools for promoting a free and open
>>>>    global Internet requires hard work by both the public and private
>>>>    sectors. This work has barely begun.
>>>>
>>>>    A range of fast-evolving technical problems requires an array of
>>>>    solutions. Activists around the world need technical assistance
>>>>    and training in order to fight cyber-attacks more effectively. We
>>>>    need more coordination between human rights activists, technology
>>>>    companies and policy makers just to understand the problems, and
>>>>    how they can be expected to evolve in the next few years.
>>>>
>>>>    What's more, existing research indicates that many of the
>>>>    problems aren't technical, but rather political, legal,
>>>>    regulatory and even social. Other obstacles to free expression
>>>>    are probably best addressed by the private sector: Social
>>>>    networking platforms like Facebook and Twitter should be urged to
>>>>    adhere to business practices that maximize the safety of
>>>>    activists using their platforms.
>>>>
>>>>    Circumvention technology is one tactic to support access to
>>>>    information and online dissent. It makes sense to keep funding
>>>>    these tools, so long as activists are given choice. On their own,
>>>>    however, they are not the silver bullet that many claim. The
>>>>    State Department and Congress need to approach freedom of speech
>>>>    issues strategically, based on a clear understanding of purpose
>>>>    and effect.
>>>>
>>>>    Ms. MacKinnon is a Bernard L. Schwartz senior fellow at the New
>>>>    America Foundation.
>>>>
>>>>    --
>>>>    Rebecca MacKinnon
>>>>    Schwartz Senior Fellow, New America Foundation
>>>>    Co-founder, GlobalVoicesOnline.org <http://GlobalVoicesOnline.org/>
>>>>
>>>>    Cell: +1-617-939-3493
>>>>    E-mail: rebecca.mackinnon at gmail.com
>>>>    <mailto:rebecca.mackinnon at gmail.com>
>>>>
>>>>    Blog: http://RConversation.blogs.com
>>>>    <http://RConversation.blogs.com/>
>>>>    Twitter: http://twitter.com/rmack
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
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